Welfare and poverty

Is social welfare a “poverty trap” or a “safety net”? Social welfare in the United States has been a hotly debated topic, ever since 1776. I am sure it goes further back but I will stick with 1776. Benjamin Franklin has at one time, spoken about how he felt about social welfare. According to Franklin, “…I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.—I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more…

Present-day welfare does not effectively reduce poverty rates because the amount of money that the recipients receive does not grant the ability to come out of poverty. The poverty level in Ontario has only been reduced by less than 1%, which was reduced based upon government actions since 1981, (Backgrounder, 2005) even though the welfare system has been in place. As well, the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) benefits in Canada only supply enough food and money to live below the…

Welfare needs to stop acting on good intentions and start acting on discernment by creating a motivation to work and get out of poverty. There are two major ways to promote this strategy: to make it so that welfare is only given out with the condition that those who receive it must be in active pursuit of a job and to make it so that welfare is only given to those who become enrolled in getting some kind of education or training. For example, according to Erin Thomas, who is a social work…

I agree that many social welfare policies are designed to perpetuate poverty. I always go back to my phrase “modern day slavery” as what I believe the welfare system perpetrate for the African American community. I believe that unemployment is high in the United States and the demand for good paying jobs has increased. For example, in order to even get a quality paying job that can support a family, one must have some sort of education, have a specific job related skill(s), professional…

The second article I chose was, “Does Welfare Reduce Poverty?” written by George J. Borjas published in 2015. As most have already learned in class, the news, or my previous explanation of the article above, welfare-programs ordinarily help decrease the poverty rates in most families, nonetheless this is not always the case. In this article Borjas’ objective is to determine the link between immigrant families and poverty rates. Borjas states that, “the huge changes in eligibility introduced by…

In the article “Poverty in America and Improving Social Welfare through Public Education” from American Democracy, states that poverty is a big problem in the united stated. It is stated that it is more likely for single mothers to reach the poverty line than a married couple with two incomes. It is indicated that a person could be working 40 hours of a week with the minimum wage as a pay rate and still be below the poverty line. This is what makes poverty a chance because no matter how hard a…

Poverty and Welfare Poverty exist because resources are scarce and cannot be equally distributed. Worldwide income is measured by Gini Index, (from zero to one) “If all the income in the world were earned by one person and everyone else earned nothing, the world would have a Gini index of one. If everyone in the world earned exactly the same income, the world would have a Gini index of zero ” (Lepore 2015). The Gini index simply measures the gap between the rich and poor, and for the U.S. the…

I think this is one of the most pressing aspects that people misjudge. A social class is defined as a group of people who share the same economic positions, but people make it much more complex than that. People look at the kind of job a person has or the color of their skin and place them in a class that they don’t necessarily belong to. In the reading “As American as Apple Pie: Poverty and Welfare,” it was brought to my attention that a majority of people will fall under the poverty line at…

organic food because it was a bit pricey. I had to buy cheaper quality foods from Dollar Tree. I purchased rice, chips, water, juice, and seasoning there. Raw meat had to be purchased elsewhere because Dollar Tree does not sell raw meat. I purchase ground turkey and chicken thighs because they were the most affordable options. The quality of life this month wasn’t as rough; I use transportation only for emergency situations because I have only a set amount. Clothes were free for the children…

This paper will examine the 1996 Welfare reform bill and how those changes affected Single mothers. It will also provide some historical context that leads up to Welfare reform changes. The policy that will be discussed is the Personal Responsibility, Work and Opportunity Act (PRWORA). The PRWORA created a social program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This program subsequently eliminated a national entitlement based social program called Aid to Families with Dependent…